Wards To Accept Rival Sears` New Credit Card

October 30, 1985|By Janet Key.

``Things are changing at Montgomery Ward,`` trumpet the billboards for the new specialty-store version of the country`s sixth-largest retailer.

Indeed they are.

Beginning Nov. 15 in San Diego, Montgomery Ward & Co. will commit what would once have been retail treason: It will add the credit and financial-services card developed by longtime rival Sears, Roebuck and Co. to the other credit cards it accepts in its retail stores.

Sears` Discover card, which the nation`s largest retailer launched in September, will be tested in San Diego stores before it`s available in Wards` 316 retail stores nationwide.

By the way, Wards President Bernard F. Brennan is the younger brother of Sears Chairman Edward A. Brennan.

In addition to its own charge card, which accounts for slightly more than 50 percent of its sales, Wards has been testing acceptance of Citicorp`s Choice card, the Mobil credit card and a Bank of America debit card in selected markets.

``A key element of our strategy to become a value-driven specialty store retailer is to provide our customers with the variety of products and services they want,`` said Bernard Brennan. ``The acceptance of Discover is an extension of our program to offer customers the opportunity of shopping with a variety of credit cards.``